The Squash Files
An Investigative Report by Michael Holland
Head swivelling before the rest of it turned, its attention seemed to encompass the whole gallery, which gradually narrowed to a point where I stood. Slowly and elegantly, it crossed the few metres of tiled floor space from the spot where it had been seemingly examining a pillar. Placing feet precisely and with deliberation it arrived where I was frozen, entranced. With my 10-month-old baby in my arms, I considered running, but the newly compressing air and heavy silence around us kept me rooted.
It.
Leaned.
Closer.
And then left, prancing away with striped dancing ease. Legs capable of too much bend; its steps and strides rubbery, wrong.
That was my encounter with The Squash. A moment I have struggled with since; to recall, describe, and understand. Described by the Tate Britain as a performance art installation, it took residence from March to October in 2018 in London. A ‘performer’ roamed around the central gallery at will, lounging, stretching, touching things, gazing.
But that's not what I saw. That wasn't a costume, it was skin: dimpled, goose-bumped in the air-conditioned space, gently rippling as a result of some internal tension. It's head not a helmet but a smooth inscrutable skull; the surface unbroken and hypnotic, in the long moment in which I stood before it I could have sworn I saw dead stars drifting in the depths of its blank face, dense shapes moving slowly across an infinite chasm; the hand it extended towards my child crackled with potential, but a potential for what?
What was it?
A social media search has determined The Squash was many things to many people. Where I felt and saw a yawning, engulfing... something, others experienced an erotic charge, humour, indifference, whimsy, or a passing and momentary distraction. There were variations in its appearance too: speckled with gold, mottled and mulched, ruffled, squintingly bright, shadowed; but always with the same frame; that smooth long head and humanoid body.
Requests to speak with the Tate organisation and the artist have been met with diversions, excuses and, finally, legally firm refusals. The Squash's manifestation so near the headquarters of the nation's security agencies suggest it either was not felt by them to be a threat, or that, if it was, it was not to be confronted. Consulting parliamentary records, it seems the state was, in any case, consumed with the legislative manoeuvring of the Brexit process. Unanswered or heavily redacted responses to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act made further interrogation of the government pointless.
Why there, in that place, at that time?
Aside from culture reviews, The Squash was not newsworthy; no concerned commentators worried about its existence or meaning. Birth and death rates remained unremarkable during the time of its wandering around the Tate Britain's halls. Average national and global temperatures continued to rise, but surely climate change was the overwhelming reason there. Data on employment, air pollution, popular baby names, global financial exchanges, food consumption, Tate visitor numbers, falling biodiversity, the rate of expansion of the universe, surveys of favourite colours, and frequency of civil disturbances all stubbornly failed to correlate with the intrusion of The Squash. Consultations with physicists, doctors, architects, historians, tree surgeons, pilots, trade unionists, religious scholars, street-food vendors, violinists did not provide useful context. A psycho-geographical mooch around the surrounding area of Pimlico revealed nothing of value; the tumbling crisp packets, pub signs, graffiti, and street names refused to cohere into anything resembling a message.
What did it want?
Soon after our meeting, there were bumps in walls, undulations with no obvious cause; just one at a time, moving frequently between rooms. There was what looked like a small handprint on the kitchen window, fingers extended downwards. Whispers in the pipes. The front door, a different colour, though my partner insisted it had always been like that. Found in a shoe, a flat pale stone painted with three blue spots. There used to be a lamppost outside; then there was not. My child occasionally clapped a strange syncopated rhythm. My sock-drawer was full of leaves. I felt an itch behind both ears when I thought of clouds. I heard waves at night; I do not live near the sea. My nails… they could smell, I think.
What happened to me?
I think rarely of The Squash these days. Things are as they were before. Typing this, I felt my hair briefly tugged but, spinning round, there was no one there. I will send this off and think no more of it.
Where did it come from?
The Squash seems to have simply occurred. If those of us blessed and cursed with its interactions experienced such vastly different responses, what was The Squash itself; its essential, unelaborated, unmediated self? Was it conjured from our collective lust, fear, political passion, disgust, admiration, boredom? Reflecting at us our own desires and fears?
Or just a creature that briefly considered eating me and my young child?
Where has it gone?
Will it come back?
